Full Name Anne Burnett Name Anne Marion | Children Wendi Grimes Religion Episcopalian | |
Occupation Rancher, horsebreeder, business executive, philanthropist, art collector Spouse(s) 4, including John L. Marion Relatives Robert Windfohr (stepfather and adoptive father)
Charles D. Tandy (stepfather)
Samuel Burk Burnett (maternal great-grandfather)
Thomas Lloyd Burnett(maternal grandfather)
David M. Grimes II (son-in-law) Parents Anne Valliant Burnett Tandy Education Hockaday School, Miss Porter's School, Briarcliff College | ||
Grandparents Thomas Lloyd Burnett Great-grandparents Samuel Burk Burnett | ||
Anne Windfohr Marion is an American rancher, horse breeder, business executive, philanthropist and art collector from Fort Worth, Texas. She serves as the President of Burnett Ranches and the Chairman of the Burnett Oil Company. She is the founder of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Early life
Anne Burnett grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. Her father, James Goodwin Hall, was a stockbroker. Her mother, Anne Valliant Burnett Tandy, was a rancher, horsebreeder, businesswoman and philanthropist. After her parents got divorced, she was adopted by her mother's third husband, Robert Windfohr, and took his name. When her mother got remarried for the fourth time, her stepfather became Charles D. Tandy, the founder of the Tandy Corporation. Her maternal great-grandfather, Captain Samuel Burk Burnett, was a rancher.
Known as 'Little Anne' informally, she was educated at the Hockaday School in Dallas and Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut. She graduated from Briarcliff Junior College in Briarcliff Manor, New York. She then attended the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas and the University of Geneva in Switzerland. She was presented as a debutante at The Assembly in Fort Worth. She was elected as Duchess of Texas at the Texas Rose Festival in 1957 and Duchess of Fort Worth to the Court of Courts by the Order of the Alamo in 1959.
Career
She inherited four ranches spanning 275,000 acres in West Texas, and serves as the President of the entity known as Burnett Ranches. It includes the historic 6666 Ranch. She purchased Dash For Cash, Special Effort and Streakin Six, all award-winning horses. She also keeps 160 broodmares. She was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2007.
In 1980, she established the Burnett Oil Company, headquartered at the Burnett Plaza in Fort Worth, Texas. The company operates in several states. It is a member of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce. She serves as the Chairman of the Board.
In 2006, she was worth US$1.3 billion. She was on the Forbes 400 list until 2009, when she was worth US$1.1 billion.
Philanthropy
She serves as President and Trustee of the Anne Burnett and Charles D. Tandy Foundation. It later became known as the Burnett Foundation. With a gift of US$10 million from the foundation, she founded the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2013, she donated the main donation for a US$57-million new emergency center at the Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth. It is named the Marion Emergency Care Center.
She has served on the Boards of Trustees of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City as well as the Kimbell Art Museum and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. She helped move the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame from Hereford to Fort Worth. Meanwhile, she selected members of the Board of Trustees alongside business executive Ed Bass. She was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 2005.
She has served on the Board of Regents of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. She has endowed a professorship at the Ranching Management School of Texas Christian University (TCU) in Fort Worth. She also paid for the renovation and new elevator of the Chancellor's box of the Amon G. Carter Stadium at TCU, where the Chancellor conducts fundraising events for the university. She is the recipient of the Charles Goodnight Award from TCU. Moreover, in 2001, she received the National Golden Spur Award from the National Ranching Heritage Center at Texas Tech University.
In 2012, she was a donor to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. In 2016 she also donated to the Trump presidential campaign, and is a regular donor to the Texas Republican Party.
Personal life
She has been divorced three times. In 1961, she was married to William Wade Meeker, the son of Mrs and Mr Julian R. Meeker. They had one daughter, Anne Windfohr Meeker (Windi). Windi later took the last name of Anne Marion's second Husband B.F. Phillips after William Wade Meeker perished in a Braniff International Airways plane crash in 1968.
Her second husband was B.F. Phillips, a legendary horseman, and they created a legacy in the horse world with Dash For Cash, Streakin Six and many others. They raised one daughter, Anne 'Windi' Phillips Grimes, married to David M. Grimes II.
Her third husband was James R. Sowell. They divorced in 1987.
She married her fourth husband, John L. Marion, at the Church of the Heavenly Rest on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, New York City, in 1988. The ceremony was performed by Reverend C. Hugh Hildesley.
She resides in the Westover Hills neighborhood of Fort Worth, Texas in a 19,000 square-foot modernist home on Shady Oaks Lane, designed for her mother by I.M. Pei in 1969. She also owns secondary residences in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Indian Wells, California, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and an apartment at 820 Fifth Avenue, New York. She enjoys quail hunting on her 6666 Ranch.